FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT PHOBOS - PAGE 3

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow is losing prestige and money due to botched space projects, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday after Russia junked two satellites in the latest launch failure to dog the once-pioneering industry. The failure of a workhorse Proton rocket after launch on Monday caused the multimillion-dollar loss of Indonesia's Telkom-3 and Russia's Express-MD2 satellites, according to Russia's space agency. Russian space agency Roskosmos said an engine failure in the rocket's upper stage, called the Briz-M, meant the craft went into the wrong orbit.

On Aug. 17, 1863 federal batteries and ships bombarded Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor during the Civil War. In 1877 American astronomer Asaph Hall, who had discovered a Martian moon on Aug. 11, sighted Mars' second moon. (He named them Deimos and Phobos.) In 1879 the French Panama Canal Co. was formed under Ferdinand de Lesseps, French diplomat and promoter of the Suez Canal. In 1915 a hurricane struck Galveston, Texas, killing 275 people. In 1933 New York Yankee star Lou Gehrig set a major-league record when he appeared in his 1,308th consecutive game.

On Aug. 17, 1786, frontiersman Davy Crockett was born in Greene County, Tenn. In 1807 Robert Fulton's steamboat, the Clermont, began its first run up the Hudson River. (The 150-mile trip from New York to Albany took 32 hours.) In 1863 federal batteries and ships bombarded Ft. Sumter in Charleston (S.C.) Harbor during the Civil War. In 1877 American astronomer Asaph Hall, who had discovered a Martian moon on Aug. 11, sighted Mars' second moon. (He named them Deimos and Phobos.

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Nov 11 (Reuters) - A 1-ton European science satellite plunged back into Earth's atmosphere and incinerated with debris most likely landing in the southern regions of the Atlantic Ocean, officials said on Monday. The last contact by ground tracking stations with Europe's Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, known as GOCE, was at 5:42 p.m. EST (2242 GMT) on Sunday as the spacecraft flew just 75 miles (120 km)

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A large science satellite that mapped Earth's gravity likely re-entered the atmosphere where most of it incinerated on Sunday, about three weeks after running out of fuel and beginning to lose altitude, officials said. Ground tracking stations' last contact with Europe's Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, or GOCE, was at 5:42 p.m. (2242 GMT) as it passed 75 miles above Antarctica, Heiner Klinkrad, head of the European Space Agency's space debris office, wrote in a status report posted on the European Space Agency's website.

* NASA praises "pinpoint and precise" landing on Kazakh steppe * Two Russian cosmonauts, U.S. astronaut emerge with smiles * Russia space programme had several failures last year (Adds astronauts emerge from capsule) By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya KOROLYOV, Russia, April 27 (Reuters) - A Soyuz capsule carrying two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut from the International Space Station (ISS) landed safely in Kazakhstan on Friday. The Soyuz TMA-22 parachuted down onto the steppe in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, landing on schedule and on target north of the town of Arkalyk after a three-hour descent from the orbital outpost.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs. Space shuttle Endeavour in Los Angeles after final flight LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The space shuttle Endeavour touched down in Los Angeles on Friday on the back of a jumbo jet, greeted by cheering crowds as it ended a celebratory final flight en route to its retirement home at a Southern California science museum. The 75-ton winged spaceship, ferried by a modified Boeing 747, landed at Los Angeles International Airport shortly before 1 p.m. after hop-scotching across the country from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and flying a victory lap over California.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A European satellite that spent four years mapping Earth's gravity ran out of fuel on Monday and will plunge back into the atmosphere in about two weeks, officials said. The Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, or GOCE, had been operating about 139 miles above Earth - lower than any other science satellite - to map variations in the planet's gravity. "We have obtained the most accurate gravity data ever available to scientists," Volker Liebig, the European Space Agency's Earth observation programs director, said in a statement.